Listening to the score of All Gates Open, you feel as if you are stepping into those artistic visual worlds in a way that sci-fi artist Jodie Day has unveiled to the world.

The second volume gets even wacky, dadaist, crazy, insane, and brilliant in a way those two guys can show how much wonderful music can come out of the Great White North.

Ripcord Fest comes to an end on an undeniable high. As a celebration of the label and of British heavy music as a whole, it’s a triumph; but even beyond that, it’s been a joyful occasion. People have undoubtedly discovered new bands, plenty have made new friends, and it feels like an entire community has chipped in to make the day worth remembering.

Gavin Brown had the pleasure of discussing Temporal Shifter with the three members of Microwaves and getting an insight into Microwaves as a band.

Listening to Solberg’s second album, you feel as if you are entering the room of an unknown world, revealing the power and having this cinematic movie inside your head, in what the Leprous front man has envisioned inside his head.

‘Is anybody’, I ask, ‘going to do a STRANGEFORMS 2026 preview’? ‘That’ll be you, then’ comes the reply. Oh. Well, I DID ask.

You can’t deny the obscurity, the wonders, and the under-radar momentum that The New World’s Fair has given. It is a collection of songs that put you right in the middle of Moorcock’s visionary wonders he has given you.

It’s way too early to say that Panorama will probably be the album of the year for 2026. But it is an excellent way to start the new year off with a big bang.

Gavin Brown caught up with Sara Niedorf from Mellowdeath to hear all about the album, its creation and influences as well as what they have planned for 2026.

I can’t wait to see and hear what she’ll come up with next for the next adventure by continuing where she has left off in her debut release. We’ll have to keep (no pun intended) a watch out for her to see what 2026 has in store for Bobbie Dazzle.

Tense, chill factors, and electronic-orchestrations, Jo’s new album is set with a mesmerising set of unknown worlds that she has unfolded to bring 2025 to a standstill.

Intense, classical, and post-apocalyptic, Lifeblood fills the heaviness into the void of unknown parallel universes that pushes listeners into opened doors to see what chances you will take and how you will change your own timeline. And the result, it is up to you that figures out what to do next.

It’s difficult to accurately describe the sound of BC,NR to the uninitiated, especially as an unmusical punter, largely because it’s so their own. All I can say is it should be in your ears, because as fast as it is in your ears, it is in your heart.

Yes, they are incredible musicians, this is not the way to start off their first album out for this year.

Godamn! What a show. Like many of us here, I feel lucky to have caught this smaller club show from Psychonaut, hoping that this will help to catapult them to even greater heights – and that tonight’s poster remains on the Lexington walls, marking the arc of that trajectory.  

Gavin Brown caught up with Aisles guitarist/producer Germán Vergara to talk about their latest single and tour as well as taking in other topics from prog rock to their native Chile.

The best way to listen to The Baldock Transmission is by putting on your headphones and turn off your mind, relax, you might jump at certain moments, but perhaps there is more to where that comes from.

You feel as if you’re inside this surreal western, revealing the past and the present unfolding in front of your very eyes with electronic and ambient arrangements.

More so than any other festival I’ve been to, ATG feels like a big old party. But one where everyone is lovely and on the same wavelength, and I’m not going to spend most of it riffling through the host’s bookshelf waiting for it to end. And a party where you can legit listen to weird prog one minute, ultra-dissonant hardcore the next, and still get away with “dancing”.  

My first-ever music festival was Download 2016, affectionately known as “#Drownload.” With memories of the apocalyptic weather of that event fresh in my mind, I was somewhat apprehensive about attending ArcTanGent (ATG) 2025. Fortunately, I need not have worried. . .

It’s another exciting and thought-provoking show courtesy of London Prog Gigs, introducing me to another great Camden live music venue, and demonstrating how Teiger and Pearl Handled Revolver are two of the best bands in the UK.